Giulio Douhet was born at Caserta, Italy, on May 30, 1869, and began his career as an artillery officer in the Italian Army. At the beginning of the XX century he immediately forecast the impact of airpower on military strategy. He was one of the three precursors – with Gen. William (Billy) Mitchell, USA, and Air Marshal Sir Hugh M. Trenchard, UK – that envisioned a new, fundamental theory on the use of airpower in war between 1915 and 1925. Douhet thought that in future wars the Air Force would be the dominant factor for victory and, therefore, should be an independent force, as the Army and the Navy, and not as a corps supporting the other two armed forces.
According to the theories of the time, the objective of the armed forces was to defeat the enemy set on the battlefield. Douhet thought that the objective of a war was to destroy the will and the capabilities of the enemy nation and to impose your will on it. In future wars Army and Navy could not have such decisive role. The enemy forces set on the battlefield constituted a barrier at protection of the vulnerable civilian structure, which supports the war. The airplane was able to overcome that barrier and hit the enemy’s population, industries, and economy. Therefore, a strong air force was necessary to conquer air superiority and destroy the enemy capabilities, while the Army and the Navy were limited to a purely defensive role.
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